The Council
held a policy debate on key aspects of the climate action and energy
legislative package with a view to the adoption of political guidelines to be
given by the European Council on 13 and 14 March 2008. The European Council
conclusions will provide guidance for further examination of the package.
Other
questions related specifically to the EU emissions trading system (ETS), the
non-ETS sectors and to the proposed framework for geological storage of
carbon dioxide. At the end of the meeting, the presidency summarised the
outcome of the debate as follows:
- the presentation of the
climate action and renewable energy package by the Commission is a
welcome response to the objectives and targets endorsed by the EU heads
of state and government last year;
- Ministers welcome the
direction of the proposed new design features of the EU ETS, such as the
increased harmonisation of allocation, including the use of auctioning,
as a way of enhancing the cost-effectiveness of the required emission
reductions. In this respect, the need to anticipate greater flexibility
for the realisation of different objectives was identified;
- carbon leakage remains a key
concern that should be addressed appropriately;
- it will be important to
clarify the methodology used to determine the reduction of emissions and
the objectives in terms of renewable energies;
- work on
the ETS review by the EU, the sharing of the non-ETS effort, the
framework for storage of carbon dioxide and renewable energy sources
must progress at the same rate;
- there is a need to make
headway on the technical issues as quickly as possible in order to reach
a final agreement with the European Parliament in early 2009 at the
latest.
Ministers
held an exchange of views on the international aspects of the package with Mr
Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Convention. The package
contains the following proposals:
- a Directive
amending Directive 2003/87/EC in order to improve and extend the EU
greenhouse gas emission allowance trading system;
- a Decision
on the effort of EU Member States to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions to meet the Community's greenhouse gas emission reduction
commitments up to 2020;
- a Directive
on the promotion of the use of renewable energy sources;
- a Directive
on the geological storage of carbon dioxide.
The legislative package, to be examined under the
Parliament-Council codecision procedure, was presented by the Commission with
a view to implementing the objectives, targets and commitments undertaken by
EU heads of state and government in March 2007:
- a 20%
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 1990;
- a 30%
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 as its
contribution to a global and comprehensive post-2012 agreement;
- saving
20% of the EU's energy consumption compared to projections for 2020;
- a 20%
share of renewable energies in overall EU energy consumption by 2020;
- a 10%
minimum target for the share of biofuels in overall EU transport petrol
and diesel consumption by 2020;
- to develop and define the
necessary technical, economic and regulatory framework to bring
environmentally safe carbon dioxide capture and sequestration to
deployment with new fossil-fuel power plants.